


Dear Inanimate Object

by Siria



Category: Leverage
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-03
Updated: 2010-09-03
Packaged: 2017-10-11 10:36:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/111505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dear Diary...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dear Inanimate Object

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sheafrotherdon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheafrotherdon/gifts).



> Thanks to Trinityofone and Dogeared for betaing and inspiration!

Dear Diary,

I don't know why I have to start writing with that, like I'm talking out loud instead of writing. This notebook is an inanimate object. Normally when I talk to stuff, Eliot tells me I'm a freak of nature and Nate drinks. More. But Sophie says it's okay to treat this like I can have a conversation with it, because sometimes a diary can be a really good friend. I don't get it. This book would have cost $3 if I'd actually paid for it, and usually I only like stuff that costs a whole lot more than that.

I said this to Sophie, but she got this weird look on her face, like she's sad. Or maybe hungry. It's difficult to tell those two apart sometimes. Just like it's hard to tell why it's not okay to talk to a Fabergé egg, but it's okay to talk to this book because it's got your words in it.

Sophie told me: all words have meanings but sometimes their meanings change. Context and tone are important; you have to learn how to read them, just like you learn how to read people when you're grifting.

She said: go write about your day. Sometimes writing things down helps you think differently; it helps you to realise things you don't know consciously.

I don't know what that means, but I said okay, I'd do it. Mostly because she was looking at me like she was sad and hungry again, and I'd already stolen the notebook. Might as well get some use out of it. I'll write about today, even though I don't know what I will realise that I don't know consciously.

Sophie said: like how a good grifter knows how to read someone, or like walking up the steps to your apartment, and knowing that there are 14 steps without having to think about it.

But those aren't the same things. People don't say what they mean and don't mean what they say, and sometimes they hit you until you learn to expect it. What's around you is easy, because there are always shapes and numbers. It's nine steps from here to the kitchen counter, I can see three ways to get from here to the front door without ever setting foot on the floor, and the way through the air duct outside is left-right-left-left-down-left-along-out. Different.

But Sophie said it would be a good idea to do it, and she once talked the Grand Duke of some place in Europe into signing over control of his whole country to her for 45 minutes. I guess she knows what she's talking about.

So. When I woke up this morning the sun was already shining outside. Most days I get up when it's still dark and go up on the roof, but Hardison is very warm and he doesn't like it when I step on his stomach when I'm getting out of bed. I stayed under the duvet and warmed my feet on Hardison's shins instead. His skin is always hot and soft and hairy there, and it tickled my toes. That's a good kind of touch. I got up when I could smell Eliot making breakfast.

Eliot wouldn't let me have Lucky-Charms-in-Orange-Juice, or fortune cookies, or mac and cheese. He said they're not breakfast foods, even though they're all food, and I eat them at breakfast time, so they're obviously breakfast foods. I told him that, but he just glared at me until I sat down at the counter. He pushed over a plate full of French toast and maple syrup to me and said: Shut up and eat that. Plate's hot, mind your fingers.

Eliot's face is always funny when he's cranky—like if Mr Bunny tried to be angry instead of being a stuffed animal. This morning he was extra cranky because Nate drank the last of the cooking sherry. I don't know why he was surprised. Nate will drink just about anything, even if there's salt in it.

I told him that. Eliot laughed and said: Ain't that the goddamned truth.

He didn't seem very happy about it, though. I didn't get it. I wanted to ask Sophie to explain it to me, but Eliot said: No, no, and no, Parker.

His face scrunched up when he said that, so I think that made him upset a little bit. I don't like it when Eliot gets upset, so I said okay, I won't ask her. Besides, last time I asked her to explain something to me, she gave me this notebook and told me I was to call it a dear diary. Sometimes Sophie's explanations don't explain very well.

I ate three pieces of French toast, and two glasses of orange juice. Eliot wouldn't let me have any coffee; he said it was because of what happened the last time I had caffeine. I was going to steal the pot from him when he turned his back, but then Hardison shuffled out of the bedroom and poured himself such a large mug that there was none left in the pot. At first I was grumpy that he drank it all, but then I got distracted by the fact that he drank it all down in one go without stopping.

(Hardison can hold his breath for a very long time. It's one of the things I like best about him. I told him that once, but he didn't seem to understand what I meant because his forehead went all scrunchy at the same time that Nate started to choke on his toast. Eliot had to do the Heimlich on him, and a really soggy bit of toast flew out and landed in Sophie's lap.)

(Sophie's skirt was vintage Dior, so that was a very bad thing. Never damage the old, expensive stuff; it loses you money.)

Then Eliot did the thing where he growled at Hardison for licking the syrup off his fingers (Eliot says it's disgusting; I think it's efficient) and then Nate arrived in and said he had a plan and said: Let's go steal us a unicorn.

Eliot's forehead got all wrinkled at that and Hardison said: Nate, man, you been drinking that cooking sherry again? Because unicorns are mythical, okay? Don't exist; like Lady Gaga's pants. And I am not going to steal Lady Gaga's pants.

Nate said: It's a metaphor, Hardison.

Then he started to explain the metaphor, so I stopped listening and I can't write down what he said. Metaphors are weird things. I don't know why people like them so much. They're slippery—all about telling you stuff you don't need to know in words that don't mean what they're supposed to mean, and they don't ever tell you how to bypass a security system or when the security shift changes are at the Met. Nate's are worse than normal. They curl back in on themselves because sometimes they don't mean what he wants them to, either.

(After that, we planned the con, but I'm not going to write that down. Some things you tell to as few people as possible, even to books-that-you're-pretending-are-friends. Archie taught me that.)

Right now I'm upside down in my second-favourite harness, writing this and waiting for Eliot and Hardison to get back out of the drain system. It shouldn't take them much longer. At least not if they escaped the dogs. Maybe while I'm upside down I should kiss Hardison? Like in Spider-Man. He likes it when we're pretending not to be ourselves even when we're only there because we like one another.

Except this time there won't be spandex.

Written by Parker.

Not that you need to know that. Because you're a notebook.


End file.
